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This is 'Merica; land of the sentence fragment.
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I don't think Jon Skeet technically has a nationality
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HomerTheGreat wrote: "thanks in advance"
 Can't stand that.
But I never edit the content of questions, usually I just add or fix pre tags.
Edit: I just remembered that recently I edited a question that was asked in Portugese. I passed it through a translator and added the English translation.
modified 10-Aug-14 11:19am.
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The way they treat people there on SO has kept me from even thinking of creating an account there.
"I've seen more information on a frickin' sticky note!" - Dave Kreskowiak
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You can create an account there? 
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To sign up, which I never have done, and do not plan on it, seeing what kind of an online community they look like...
"I've seen more information on a frickin' sticky note!" - Dave Kreskowiak
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I created an account and posted a very small number of answers.
One answer had a small inaccuracy in it and I was voted down and flamed.
The helpful answers were not even acknowledged.
That led to me cancelling my account and carrying on with Codeproject - where people are much more friendly and helpful.
“That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.”
― Christopher Hitchens
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I'm not sure QA here is that much better. It depends a lot on who you happen to run into.
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I will jump in belatedly on this and say that I have never experienced those problems. The times I've asked a question, I've gotten a decent reply in short order. No insults, no ranting, no down voting. So, I'm not sure what you're talking about.
Marc
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Same experience here my friend.
I think the thing that a lot of people don't realize is that SO isn't designed to be a place of social interaction - not even close.
Furthermore, many of the site's policies have been adjusted over time to become more newb-friendly.
I think many of those caught out by SO users' militant behaviour have simply failed to read the rules/expectations in the help centre and failed to grasp and appreciate the culture of the site. Failure to do these generally results in an introduction to a wire-brush spinning at 2800 rpm.
To be entirely honest (and perhaps arrogant?) - I think that a lot of users need to not be so precious when they receive a wire-brushing - to take the criticism on-board, learn from it and move on.
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I'd say the only time I've seen problems there is if a) someone has posted a question that's already been asked numerous times, or b) the question is written so badly or without enough information for anyone to actually help.
Usually a prod in the right direction (not from me, btw - I don't have any kind of rank there  ) resolves both of these issues.
modified 31-Aug-21 21:01pm.
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I've got to agree with you; if you ask an intelligent question you'll get a reasonable answer. If you post "Gimmie Teh Codez!!! Its Urgentz!!!" on SO; it will get quickly deleted. On CP it gets linked to on the Lounge for widespread mockery. I suspect obliterating the torrent of crap and only keeping the good content has something to do with that fact that when I Google for how to fix a problem I almost always find multiple hits from SO; I don't think I've *ever* seen QA show up in Google.
Did you ever see history portrayed as an old man with a wise brow and pulseless heart, waging all things in the balance of reason?
Is not rather the genius of history like an eternal, imploring maiden, full of fire, with a burning heart and flaming soul, humanly warm and humanly beautiful?
--Zachris Topelius
Training a telescope on one’s own belly button will only reveal lint. You like that? You go right on staring at it. I prefer looking at galaxies.
-- Sarah Hoyt
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Bingo.
FWIW, I collected some stats a while back on how much cruft gets deleted for various reasons. One of the things that persistently irritates me about searching for problems on the 'Net is wasting time clicking through to unresolved problems - getting questions that can't be effectively answered out of circulation to make room for those that are is critical, IMHO.
You must be careful in the forest
Broken glass and rusty nails
If you're to bring back something for us
I have bullets for sale...
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Solution: do a little work before demanding others hand you the solution on a silver platter. If stupid questions get good answers, SO will overflow (ha!) with stupidity, making it useless for people who ask and answer good questions.
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I disagree.
They can be rude, yes, but usually it's the questions that could be easily googled that get them going. If something was answered (maybe even on SO!) and yet it is asked again and again...they GIVE their free time in an attempt to help genuine problems...once SO got reputation they wasted their time answering how to setup arrays in C# or similar (stupid / lazy / unnecessary) questions.
Give the guys a break, use search before you ask and THEN ask the question along with the list of tried things that did not work for you.
And besides, looking for the answers is the way you become an expert (by your own words).
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Could not agree more except I didn't/don't find it funny.
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Unfortunately, this also happens in Code Project. And it deeply, deeply saddens me.
Code Project has the best newsletters, but not the best forums. A lot of the people who participate in CP forums have the worst attitude towards ignorance.
This is why I rarely participate in discussions in Code Project. The attitude from a lot of my peers here is appaling.
Anyway, I always say: "Ignorance is sacred. But not wanting to learn is wrong."
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pandu web dev wrote: In stackoverflow, if a new one asks a simple question, then the top users starts down voting, ranting.
If someone don't have knowledge on particular topic or another then the regular users start insulting them.
They call themselves as experts.
Maybe I just follow the wrong threads? Because that (and other comments in the same vein from replies to your post) doesn't at all look like the StackOverflow I know.
I have been an SO user for years now. It's great. Most of the times I have a question, it's already been asked and answered there a number of times, so I can even pick the solution that best fits my case. In the rare cases that I've had to ask a question myself, even when I didn't get a complete answer right away, or even any answer at all (though that was a very niche question[^]), people always tried to be helpful. Same thing with the occasional answers I gave – even when they were "edited" the changes were reasonable and duly explained, with space given for me to plead my case.
I'm not saying you're lying, but SO is a really large site, and some topics seem to invite more trolls than others. As with most things, your mileage may vary[^]. But in general I think StackExchange nailed the format for a question-and-answer site, not only in StackOverflow but also in the other sites[^] of their network.
"Whereas smaller computer languages have features designed into them, C++ is unusual in having a whole swathe of functionality discovered, like a tract of 19th century Africa."
-- Verity Stob
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/05/05/cplusplus_cli/
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I lost my old account, created a new one asked a question, was corrected on grammar about 5 times in 2 hours, rolled them all back and got a snooty note for roll backs. It totally cured me of spending time on StackOverflow and answering questions. See there is a good side to everything!!!
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I like answering people's questions on forums. Those forums allow people to ask questions, and allow other people to answer those questions. The main goal there is to get answersto the questions, and as a side-effect, it creates a sort of database filled with information in a Q&A format (the old topics).
Stackoverflow flips this around, its main goal is get a sort of database with information in a Q&A format. And it has the side-effect that people get an answer to their question. They don't care about the people that ask the question, or the answer, all they care about is the information.
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Er, no, the goal of SO is to have good questions with good answers. That's why it is the go-to place for professionals to find answers. Several times every week I google a technical issue and almost always the explanation or answer is already posted at SO.
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down with stackoverflow 
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Did anybody mention Hitler yet?
This is all very silly. There seems to be some weird sense of entitlement requiring SO to be all things to all people. But out in the real world it has every right to be as nasty, exclusive, cliquey and arrogant as it wants. That's the nature of a free 'market'. It doesn't owe any of us anything. If it's not to your taste then use one of the many alternatives. Life is way too short to be demanding membership of a club which clearly does not either want or need you as a member!
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I don't think anyone here is demanding membership. I think it is a case of StackOverflow having what looks to be on the outside a great source of info with people interacting and sharing.
StackOverflow makes you want to take advantage of that. We all have our strengths and weaknesses, areas we are not as knowledgeable about. StackOverflow on the outside looks like a great place to ask and share your knowledge.
Kind of like a restaurant with a nice fancy sign and front entrance.
But once you enter you are roughly thrown down a seat and told just exactly how you suck for even coming in the restaurant in the first place.
Then after you try the food you get another dose of attitude for your attempt and a kick in the butt as you exit the place.
I mean in my case when I created my account something went wrong. I was not able to comment or answer AT ALL. The ONLY THING I could do was ask a question. When I asked how to fix my account I got down voted, asked to roll back, you name it.
Instead of constructive information there was more bandwidth wasted on slamming me then there was pointing me in any right direction.
One guy told me I wasn't looking hard enough and he sent me a link to screen shot of topic and highlighted the answer and comment links and rudely said, if you'd read you'd see these and figure it out.
I calmly went to the same question and took a screen shot of my screen in 3 different browsers both on Win and Mac and sent it back to him with the caption: "Should I draw in my answer and comment links and see if the work because I don't seem to have them."
About a day later, magically my rep went up a point and suddenly the answer and comment links were active. Very curious as I didn't change a thing.
So I used my new found "power" to provide an additional comment(containing a different solution) a stackoverflow question that was already answered and roughly 1 year old. My rep went right back down and I was slammed for adding an answer to an "older", "Already answered" question and told I should remove my comment.
Well my commenttook a very different and very useful approach from the existing accepted answer. Why the down votes and wasted bandwidth telling me how I suck when my answer adds alternatives to solving the problem!?
I just don't get it.
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But there are restaurants not unlike that and they have a regular clientele who go precisely for that reason. Some people thrive on rough and tumble, insult and abuse. That's just human nature.
You usually know what to expect from such places being forewarned by reputation. And so it is with SO. It seems churlish to complain about what you're getting if it's exactly what you'd expect. You don't throw yourself into a live volcano and then complain because it's a bit warm in there! Everybody knows (or at least should know) that there are a bunch of newbie hating jerks at SO so why get involved if you know you don't have the stomach for it? There are plenty of ways to access SO information and resources without engaging in the forum directly. And if it's forum activity you want there are any number of other sites to cater for it. It's futile to ask a site as well established as SO to change to suit you and merely a waste of breath to rant on about how many ways it doesn't meet your desires. Bang your fist on the mountain as much as you want but don't expect the mountain to give a damn.
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